Rusty room divider

Description: It all started with placing two Expedit units on top of each other; I ended up with something very colourful. There are way too many stages in this project to explain it all in 5 pictures. If you’d like to see more, go here.

1. As I wanted to separate my dining table from my office I fixed two Expedit units on top of each other, with on the wallside a small storing space (for long objects).

2. Even though it was very functional, it still looked very much like, well.. two stacked Expedit units. And I wanted something a bit more groovy. Also, I wanted to separate my office/work room a bit more.

3. Adhesive plastic foil was used to stick on the insides of the compartments: yellow, orange, blue and black, in a semi-random fashion.

4. From 2 large sheets of 4mm MDF new fronts were made, covering more compartments on the side of the dinner table, so I could use them for office stuff without exposing it in the living room.

5. More MDF parts were attached to it, creating a doorway on the right, and a large mirror on top, right under the ceiling.

6. The sides of the expedit unit were covered in black adhesive plastic foil.

7. The fronts were treated with a paint that has iron particles. After that a couple of layers of acid (ferrochloride) were applayed to make the iron rust very fast (within a couple of days). The rusty metal gives it sort of an industrial feel.

8. There are 4 “tv shaped” compartments with a removable panel, which fit exactly an LP record cover, so I can make some changes to it every now and then.

Although it was pointed out before, I have to say it again:Great hack. (Wouldn’t do it like this cause I’m more the less colorful type – but that doesn’t matter here).

The most inspiring thing about your hack is the mirror thing. If you wouldn’t have pointed out, that there is a mirror, I wouldn’t have seen it. This is such a great way, to built a “true” room divider (i.e. floor to ceiling) that does not seem massive at all!

By the way..the iron&rust paint is very hard to get in Europe (in the US it’s more widely available, but they don’t ship overseas; dangerous content!). There is one store in Germany (with very reasonable prices and shipping costs called Modulor. They have an incredible collection of materials that you never knew they existed. Very inspiring!

@SJO:depends on where you live. There is a German company called D-C-fix that have an incredibly wide range of options. In The Netherlands there are only a couple of stores where you can buy the whole range of colours (the advantage is that you can buy per meter instead of a 10m roll entirely).